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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26034304">together</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/renesaramis/pseuds/but%20love%20is%20blind'>but love is blind (renesaramis)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Crying, Drabble Collection, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:55:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,295</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26034304</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/renesaramis/pseuds/but%20love%20is%20blind</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>30 days of Lorenzo and Jessica.</p><p>Day 2: “Do you miss him?” asks Lorenzo, one afternoon, when the sun is high and bright in the cloudless sky.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jessica/Lorenzo (Merchant of Venice)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. mama</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>He talks to her sometimes, when he thinks she is asleep, his lips barely moving in whispers of a childhood he cannot forget.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He talks to her sometimes, when he thinks she is asleep, his lips barely moving in whispers of a childhood he cannot forget. Some nights, Lorenzo will tell her about the days he spent alone or thieving to survive. Others are brighter, and he talks about Antonio and Bassanio, and the first few mornings of hot breakfasts and a pair of brotherly eyes watching over his shoulder. Most of the time, Jessica feigns sleep.</p><p>He is welcome to his own secrets, should he wish to keep them.</p><p>“My mother was a Jew,” he says, one spring night, startling Jessica enough that she stills in his arms, her body tensing against her will. It is the first day of Pesach – she still counts the days, even now – and she realises too late that he knows she is awake, that he has probably always known.</p><p>“I do not remember her,” he adds quietly, as though that changes things. “She died when I was a baby, and I was raised by Venice herself.”</p><p>Jessica knows this, of course – she has been married to him for over a year now, and Lorenzo’s mother did not die too soon to circumcise him – but to hear him admit this to her is nothing short of a surprise. She has been lying in wait, hoping he might finally say something, but she understands now: here, in the darkness, where they cannot see each other or read each other’s expressions, is where he finds the courage to bear himself to her, to strip himself naked in front of her and tell her everything that he is.</p><p>“What was her name?” Jessica asks. Her hands find his face in the moonlight; her fingertips trace the outline of his nose, and her other hand cradles his cheek.</p><p>She feels his head move minutely. “I do not know,” he whispers. “I used to hear the names of Jewish women and wonder if any of them were hers. A Rachel, maybe.” He swallows the way he does when he is trying to hold back tears, and she feels him clench his jaw beneath her palms. </p><p>Gently she rubs her thumb across his stubble, wanting to comfort him without words, to encourage him to talk if that is what he needs.</p><p>“I think about her sometimes,” he admits. “If ... if things would be different if she had not died. I wonder what she would have been like. You and I might have been friends ...”</p><p>“And now we are something else entirely,” she reminds him softly. She feels a tear nudge her thumb. “Your mother loved you. She always will.”</p><p>It is this quiet assurance of love, words he has never heard, that breaks him. He pushes her hands away as he shakes, his body wracked with over twenty years’ worth of grief. Jessica pulls him back into her arms, holding him against her, almost as if she can protect him from the past.</p><p>She has seen him cry, watched his eyes glisten with tears before he has had time to pull himself together, and move on – but he has never shown her such raw emotion. For the first time, he offers himself as an open book to her; she holds the bindings close enough to be able to smell them, and her fingers linger on every word, but she cannot turn the page until she is sure he is ready.</p><p>He quietens after several minutes until all that remains are congested sniffles. Lorenzo’s hand tightens around hers.</p><p>“I am here,” Jessica promises. “I am with you.”</p><p>“I know,” he responds. “Thank you.”</p><p>She waits until she is sure he is asleep to think about closing her eyes. His hand is still around hers, and his head nestles in the space between her shoulder and her neck. She wonders, for a moment, if this is what he was building himself up for - if this is what he wanted to tell her all along - but the moment is short-lived.</p><p>It hardly matters.</p><p>There is him, and there is her. That is all.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. if love is not the key</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>“Do you miss him?” asks Lorenzo, one afternoon, when the sun is high and bright in the cloudless sky.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello! Rest assured I haven't abandoned these oneshots, I've just been busy with work and it turns out I don't have the time to write a ficlet/drabble a day like I thought I would. So while I'll keep updating until I've done all 30 chapters, they won't be as frequent as I'd like them to be.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Do you miss him?” asks Lorenzo, one afternoon, when the sun is high and bright in the cloudless sky. “Your father, I mean.”</p><p>Jessica stills, pulling her hand away from his. Her first instinct is to lie, to deny she has any love for her father; instead, she asks, “Wherefore do you ask? I have not spoken of him in almost a year.”</p><p>He reaches for her, gentle, an unspoken whisper of <em>please do not push me away</em> hidden in there somewhere. “I wondered. Surely, you must. I would miss mine, too.”</p><p>“What would you have me confess to you?” she asks, unable to stop the bitterness seeping into her tone. “That I <em>do </em>miss him? That your gentile wife is still part Jew? That she holds onto that part of herself still, without any shame?”</p><p>‘Tis Lorenzo’s turn to still. His brows furrow in confusion. “That is not what I meant,” he says slowly. “I just –” He stops, thinking over his next words. “If you wanted to speak with him, to see him … I would not object to it.”</p><p>Her eyes widen in surprise – and hope, too, she thinks. “You would not?” she asks. “Verily?”</p><p>“He is your father,” he says, as if ‘tis all that simple. Then he grasps for something else, another thought he has kept to himself since Antonio’s trial. “I wish we had done this properly.” His tone is apologetic, eyes soft with regret. “I wish I had <em>met </em>your father, asked his permission …”</p><p>“He would have said no,” Jessica reminds him, not unkindly. “He would have said no, and turned you away, forbade us from seeing each other …” She takes his hand again. “He would have had me married before the Sabbath arrived, Lorenzo. What we did was the only thing we could have done.”</p><p>“I would have done <em>anything</em>,” he assures her, lowering his voice to say his next words. “Converted, even.”</p><p> His confession stuns Jessica into silence – and himself, too. Is what he said true? <em>Would </em>he have converted for her? Abandoned the very men who saved him and gave him a home, to run away with a Jewish girl?</p><p>He does not know the answer to that. He does not know what he would have done, had the roles been reversed. Perhaps he would not have had the courage to run away, not really.</p><p>Or perhaps he would have.</p><p>“I love you,” he says, quietly, almost shyly, like the first time he said it to her.</p><p>“I know,” she replies. She does not understand why he is saying it, why now … but she knows all the same.</p><p>“Every part of you,” he adds, almost frantic to reassure her. “Even the parts that are still Jewish. <em>Especially</em> those parts, because …” He fumbles with his words for a moment. “They are you. I do not want a good Christian wife, even if that is what you have to pretend to be. I want <em>you</em>.”</p><p>And ‘tis those words that make her stumble, stop her in her tracks, and she stares at him, completely dumbfounded … and she understands. The reckless decision she made little over a year ago suddenly does not feel so reckless; it feels <em>right</em>, as though she was supposed to go with Lorenzo, as though it was the right thing to do all along, despite how wrong it felt in those immediate days after, once the adrenaline had left her.</p><p>“I will write to my father tomorrow,” she promises, although whether she is making the promise to herself or to her husband she knows not.</p><p>All she knows is that by the end of the week she may have a father, and her father may have a daughter, found.</p>
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